Windcentrale’s success in crowdfunding wind energy
Crowdfunding for Wind Energy Sets New World Record http://theenergycollective.com/claretaylor/279926/crowdfunding-wind-energy-sets-new-world-record Clare Taylor September 26, 2013 This week 1700 Dutch households raised EUR 1.3 million in just thirteen hours to buy shares in a wind turbine – setting a new world record for crowdfunding. For the next 12 years, these households will receive their own sustainable energy from the cooperatively owned turbine. With electricity costs set to rise, the ‘wind-sharers’ will benefit from big annual savings – by anticipating and managing energyneeds. Facilitated by Dutch company WindCentrale, the wind shares were sold for EUR 200 each and households bought single shares or blocks of shares. Each share corresponds to approximately 500kWh of electricity per year (the annual average household consumption in the Netherlands is 3500kWh).
Harm Reitsma, founder of Windcentrale, comments: ‘We expected things would move fast, but nobody anticipated the run on the wind-shares that happened yesterday evening. An increasing number of people want to generate their own electricity. Solar panels aren’t always an option and so wind-shares in a remote wind turbine gives everyone the chance to take matters into their own hands and generate their own clean electricity. As a result, interest in our wind-shares has been huge, and continues to rise. A good example of Power To The People!’
Windcentrale was founded in 2010, setting up cooperatives to help accelerate the switch to sustainable energy in the Netherlands. The wind-sharers jointly own the wind turbine, and a dedicated smartphone App allows every owner to see wind speeds and electricity production levels ‘real time’.
Explicitly linking patterns of energy consumption and renewable energy production is also highlighted inEnergizAIR, an Intelligent Energy-Europe project aimed at setting up a renewable energy weather forecast covering real-time production indicators for PV, solar thermal and wind turbines.
Irish start-up EnergyElephant uses a ‘e-traffic light’ system to let users know when there is a lot of renewable energy being generated. Founder Joe Borza sees this as a way to enable consumer choice in reducing household’s carbon footprint, tweeting last week ‘What a day for Irish wind energy! 40% for most of this afternoon!!!’ Time to ‘make hay while the sun shines’, and the wind blows…
Uncertain future for Japan’s nuclear industry affects Cameco’s grading
Bank of America Downgrades Cameco on Lower Uranium Forecast Dwight Einhorn, Benzinga Staff Writer 27 Sept 13, In a report published Friday, Bank of America analyst Oscar Cabrera downgraded the rating on Cameco Corporation (NYSE: CCJ [FREE Stock Trend Analysis]) from Buy to Neutral, and lowered the price
target from $25.00 to $22.00.
In the report, Bank of America noted, “We are downgrading Cameco (CCO) to a Neutral from Buy rating, and lowering our price objective (PO) to $22/share from $25, following our commodities team downgrade of our 2013-15 uranium price forecast due to slower than expected Japanese reactor restarts after the country’s nuclear accident at Fukushima in March 2011……. http://www.benzinga.com/analyst-ratings/analyst-color/13/09/3947890/update-bank-of-america-downgrades-cameco-on-lower-uraniu#ixzz2gDw46reS
The politicians are wrong – 100% renewable energy is possible Guardian UK Dr Nafeez Ahmed 25 Sept 13, If Miliband wants to beat the Big Six and deliver energy price freeze promise, he must fix his party’s broken policies first “…….In May this year, a report by the Committee found that investing in renewable energy, as opposed to a new ‘dash for gas’, would be the cheapest option for keeping the lights on while cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Investing in renewable energy was the best option even if shale gas prices were relatively low. The report identified “a clear benefit in committing to invest in low-carbon generation over the next two decades”, rather than “an alternative strategy of investing in gas-fired generation through the 2020s and delaying investment in low-carbon technologies.”
In other words, we don’t need shale gas to keep the lights on. Renewables can not just keep the lights on, they can keep them cheap, and perhaps therefore back-up a proposed price freeze. But it seems, politicians and ministers are not interested in listening to the independent scientific advice that they themselves are commissioning with taxpayer’s money. Continue reading
A litany of bad news for the US nuclear industry
Wall Street firm Credit Suisse set the tone in February with a report that described the aging U.S. fleet of nuclear power plants as “facing declining performance, higher costs and inevitable mortality.by Elizabeth Douglas, theguardian.com, Wednesday 25 September 2013 As the economics of building plants and maintaining old ones erode, some experts see little hope for an industry being touted by some as a climate savior.
A string of plant closures, project cancellations and other setbacks has raised new doubts about the future of nuclear power in the United States, but there’s disagreement about whether the retrenchment will be limited and temporary or the beginning of a broad and permanent decline.Renewed safety concerns and reinvigorated local opposition have played a role in the industry’s recent troubles. But the most potent foe—and the primary force behind the spate of closures and abandoned projects—is economic.The industry’s run of bad news includes: Continue reading
Bye Bye Nuclear Renaissance
The market setbacks and stark projections have put an emphatic end to talk of the U.S. “nuclear renaissance” that was still being touted by industry supporters as recently as 2010.
More than half of the 28 proposed new reactors have since been officially cancelled or halted, and most of the others are stalled.
First US nuclear power closures in 15 years signal wider industry problems by Elizabeth Douglas, theguardian.com, Wednesday 25 September 2013“……….Cooper believes market conditions are so unfavorable that premature closures will not be limited to plants that have to compete for customers. He said closures will also hit nuclear plants that operate in regulated markets, where they are mostly protected from the competitive forces that drove the Kewaunee and Vermont Yankee plants out of business. Continue reading
Renewable energy is thriving, despite natural gas investment
Natural Gas Is Not Destroying Renewable Energy http://blogs.wsj.com/experts/2013/09/23/natural-gas-is-not-destroying-renewable-energy/ What is the single biggest misconception people have about renewable energy in the U.S.? And why do you think they have this misconception? IVAN MARTEN: 23 Sept 13 Very simply, the biggest misconception about renewable energy in the U.S. today is that it is failing.
Many people believe that cheap natural gas is crowding out the prospects investment in renewable energy investment; that U.S. companies are largely destined for bankruptcy as Chinese players expand to dominate the market; and that the Department of Energy has lost an immense amount of money on its federal loan guarantee program. In reality, however, the outlook is much brighter. The market for renewable energy in the U.S. continues to grow rapidly alongside natural gas as a quickly increasing source for power generation. Solar-power installations in 2013 are expected to be up 33% over last year and reach their highest level ever. Consumption of wind-powered energy was 21% higher in the first six months of 2013 than during the same period of 2012.
While there has been a shakeout of weak U.S. renewable-energy companies, others are thriving. U.S. solar manufacturer SunPower gained market share versus Chinese competitors in 2012. Innovative services businesses, such as solar installers, also are enjoying dramatic growth: share prices of SolarCity, for example, have tripled since the company’s initial public offering in early 2013. Project developers such as NRG have built strong pipelines of activity. And new players are popping up frequently. More than $500 million in venture capital was invested in clean-technology companies, including those in renewable energy, during the summer of 2013. Nearly all are based in the U.S.
What about those federal loans? Despite a few high-profile failures –including the infamous Solyndra debacle– the DoE currently is on track to recover 98% of the loans it made since 2009 to help renewable-energy startups commercialize their technologies.
In summary, the U.S. remains a healthy, competitive, and growing renewable-energy market. This growth will continue, driven by the need to meet existing mandates and falling costs that will make the energy more competitive with fossil fuels in the future. The creative destruction brought by market forces will continue, and some existing companies will fail. But new, innovative business models will continue to emerge.
Renewable energy is here to stay as part of the U.S.’s total energy mix.
Prime Minister Abe on nuclear marketing visit to India
Shinzo’s Delhi visit is an extension of his 2007 secret deal with Dick Cheney in Tokyo where a quadrilateral alliance in the Asia-Pacific region was sealed with the US, Japan, Australia and India as partners to contain and confront China and its allies North Korea and Russia. The nuclear mafia rules OK!
The Japan-India Nuclear Energy Deal Manmohan Singh’s Atomic Pile May Become Critical after Shinzo Abe’s Deal By Arun Shrivastava Global Research, September 22, 2013 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is coming to India to discuss a ‘range of issues;’ the truth is that he is coming here as chief salesman of global nuclear industry, now collapsing under the collective onslaught of nuclear scientists, nuclear power plant engineers, physicists, investigative journalists and people.
Shinzo is known for many things: dogged attempts at reviving Japan’s nuclear industry, his alleged connections with Japan’s notorious mafia, Yamaguchi-gumi. Continue reading
India’s Dept of Atomic Energy wants help in winning hearts and minds towards nuclear power
More important, DAE touched upon the growing protest against nuclear energy in India and told US industry members they would have to address ideological opposition in this regard and also safety- related concerns and public awareness. US industry would also have to tackle issues relating to land acquisition and resource mobilisation.
DAE invites US firms to be part of India’s nuclear story http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/dae-invites-us-firms-to-be-part-of-india-s-nuclear-story-113092000753_1.html Sanjay Jog | Mumbai September 23, 2013 A high-level delegation of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) in Vienna rolled out a red carpet for US industry to invest in the nuclear capacity addition programme. India proposes to increase its nuclear capacity to 63,000 Mw by 2032 from the present level of 4,780 Mw, with a mix of indigenous reactors and also through foreign technical cooperation.
The DAE, however, in no uncertain terms told the US industry delegation the companies would have to meet Indian regulatory requirements. Indian laws would be applicable to them, though the presentation did not make a mention of the civil nuclear liability law.
A couple of global nuclear reactor supplier companies have raised serious objections against our civil nuclear liability law. The DAE team, led by Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) chief R K Sinha, was in Vienna to attend the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 57th general conference between September 16 and 19. Continue reading
Japan’s economy can move forward without nuclear power
Electricity in Japan Power struggle The Economist, Sep 21st 2013 | TOKYO “……….The LDP’s anti-nuclear coalition partner, New Komeito, also constrains the government somewhat. Meanwhile, rising business optimism appears to undermine the case that economic recovery depends on nuclear power. Probably no more than 12-15 reactors will be switched back on, says Kazuhiro Ueta, a renewable-energy specialist who sits on the government’s energy-advisory board. For the nuclear village, which once expected to supply at least half of Japan’s power, that would be a grave disappointment.
Instead, Japan is preparing for other long-term energy supplies. Since 2011 the number of independent power producers tapping renewable sources, such as solar power, has tripled, thanks in part to a new “feed-in” tariff system for renewables. Including hydro-electricity, renewables now represent 10% of the energy mix, leading to hopes that they might one day replace the share that nuclear power once claimed…………..
Long-overdue proposals to liberalise the electricity market may do much to diversify energy sources and lower electricity bills. The government’s plan, easier to push through now that TEPCO, the biggest utility, has been brought low by its handling of the Fukushima fiasco, is to split generation and transmission, with the residential electricity market open to new competition. If the reform succeeds, says Hiroshi Takahashi of the Fujitsu Research Institute in Tokyo, the share of nuclear power in the energy mix would fall as new, non-nuclear providers won customers. It would, at long last, give the public some say over Japan’s energy choices. http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21586570-shadow-fukushima-worlds-worst-nuclear-disaster-after-chernobyl-hangs-over-japans-energy
Japan’s big electricity companies put obstacles in the way of renewable energy
Since there are no regulations defining grid access, the restrictions can be imposed at will by the major utilities.
In a survey by the Japan Renewable Energy Foundation, in Tokyo, as many as 60 solar power providers said they had given up selling power because of the grid access problems.
a major stumbling block for renewable energy,
Renewable energy push blunted as ad-hoc rules stymie private upstarts, Japan Times, KYODO SEP 15, 2013 Ever since Japan kicked off a system to encourage the use of renewable energy for electricity in July 2012, businesses, civic organizations and even local government bodies have been trying to break into the tightly held power market.
Under the so-called feed-in tariff system, utilities are required purchase any generated electricity derived from five types of renewable energy for a fixed price and a set time.
But the momentum seems to be slowing. Several potential power suppliers are dropping their bids after coming face to face with restrictions that make it difficult for them to link to the power grids run by the utilities, which are essentially monopolies. Continue reading
America’s nuclear weapons spending – bloated and out of control
The post-Cold War nuclear warhead complex has become a gigantic self-licking ice cream cone for contractors,”
Nation’s bloated nuclear spending comes under fire Journal Review, 13 Sept 13, Matthew Daly reported from Washington, D.C. Associated Press At Los Alamos National Laboratory, a seven-year, $213 million upgrade to the security system that protects the lab’s most sensitive nuclear bomb-making facilities doesn’t work. Those same facilities, which sit atop a fault line, remain susceptible to collapse and dangerous radiation releases, despite millions more spent on improvement plans.
In Tennessee, the price tag for a new uranium processing facility has grown nearly sevenfold in eight years to upward of $6 billion because of problems that include a redesign to raise the roof. And the estimated cost of an ongoing effort to refurbish 400 of the country’s B61 bombs has grown from $1.5 billion to $10 billion.
Virtually every major project under the National Nuclear Security Administration’s oversight is behind schedule and over budget _ the result, watchdogs and government auditors say, of years of lax accountability and nearly automatic annual budget increases for the agency responsible for maintaining the nation’s nuclear stockpile.
The NNSA has racked up $16 billion in cost overruns on 10 major projects that are a combined 38 years behind schedule, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reports. Other projects have been cancelled or suspended, despite hundreds of millions of dollars already spent, because they grew too bloated. Continue reading
Florida: costly high risk nuclear power should not be funded by the tax-payer
Americans may be divided on the use of nuclear power, but few people will defend the notion that massive utilities should be relying on taxpayers to build nuclear reactors. The bottom line is clear: Putting the full faith and credit of the U.S. government behind this costly, high-risk Vogtle reactor project is fiscally irresponsible
Policy wrongly puts risk of nuclear plants on public http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/os-ed-front-burner-nuclear-loans-con-20130912,0,1513077.story By Ryan Alexander, September 12, 2013
Think what you want about nuclear power. Maybe it’s the best way to generate electricity or maybe it’s the worst. For Florida taxpayers, that debate may be less relevant than the one aimed right at your pocketbook.
At issue is the use of taxpayer-backed federal loan guarantees to finance nuclear-reactor projects — such as the Vogtle reactors in Georgia now awaiting a deadline for final agreement on loan-guarantee terms. If these terms are finalized, taxpayers will be left holding the bag in the event of a Vogtle default.
In February 2010, the U.S. Department of Energy conditionally offered Southern Company and its partners $8.33 billion in taxpayer-backed loan guarantees to build two nuclear reactors in Georgia. The subsidy would be provided through the same DOE program that awarded more than $500 million to the now defunct solar-power company, Solyndra. The Vogtle project is roughly 16 times bigger than Solyndra in loan-guarantee terms and perhaps every bit as troubled.
The project is already experiencing construction delays that could increase costs substantially, and its design, the AP1000, has never been built in the United States before or been successfully completed or operated anywhere in the world. Initial cost estimates of $14.1 billion are already being pushed up to $15.3 billion. With lawsuits being pursued by contractors designing the reactor, the cost could jump again to $16.2 billion.
All of this is unfolding against a backdrop of grim news for the nuclear industry in the U.S. Continue reading
Virginia Uranium still bribing politicians, yet uranium market has collapsed
Whatever Happened to Virginia Uranium? http://www.baconsrebellion.com/2013/09/whatever-happened-to-virginia-uranium.html By Peter Galuszka , 11 Sept 13, A big effort to mine uranium in Southside Virginia seemed stymied when the General Assembly failed to end a moratorium on such activity in the last General Assembly.
It would seem that exploiting a large deposit of ore in Pittsylvania County by a wealthy local family and some obscure Canadian investors had fallen away.
Two developments underline the uncertainty of the venture, which has been wrought with political turmoil involving expenses-paid trips for legislators to Paris and allies of Gov. Robert F. McDonnell making late night phone calls to twist local arms for the project.
First, Virginia Uranium keeps giving donations. According to the Virginia Public Access Project, the firm has given $53,500 to state politicians this year. It is part of a whopping $324,650 in donations the firm has given since it ramped up in 2008.
The other noteworthy item is a story in today’s Wall street Journal that paints a very bad picture for the future of nuclear power. Uranium prices are at their lowest levels in eight years, trading at about $34 a pound Tuesday. For the Virginia project to work, they have to be well above $65 a pound.
What’s more, the Journal says, the market for the fuel hasn’t recovered since the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan, which is still causing trouble. In the U.S., cheap and plentiful shale gas from fracking has priced nukes out. Germany is shutting its off by 2022 and even nuke-happy France plans on reducing its nuke load from 80 to 50 percent.
So, one might ask, why is Virginia Uranium still doling out dough?
Japan desperate to sell nuclear reactors overseas
Reactor makers look abroad as home market fizzles , Japan Times, BY KAZUAKI NAGATA 10 Sept 13, The Fukushima meltdowns and the continuing radiation crisis may have turned the public off of atomic energy at home, but it’s full steam ahead for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Japan’s heavy industries when it comes to exporting that technology to power-hungry economies abroad.
The marketing push being led by Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party, which brought Japan into the nuclear age, has angered nuclear protest groups, which, like many members of the public, blame the party’s cozy ties with big business for setting the stage for the Fukushima meltdown debacle.
Here are some questions and answers about Japan’s nuclear technology exports: How does the process of exporting nuclear plants work? Continue reading
Miserable market for uranium stops Colorado uranium mill build
Plan to build uranium mill in SW Colorado on hold The Associated Press September 8, 2013 DURANGO — A Toronto-based energy company is holding off on its plan to build a uranium mill in southwest Colorado.
The Durango Herald reports (http://bit.ly/15H4qMC ) Stephen Antony, president and CEO of Energy Fuels Resources Inc., told investors during a conference call Friday the company won’t build the Pinon Ridge mill in Montrose County unless there is an unexpected turnaround in uranium prices…..http://gazette.com/plan-to-build-uranium-mill-in-sw-colorado-on-hold/article/1506008he gaztte,
1 This Month
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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